Fremont passes $3.8 million budget
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on June 17, 2015 1:46 PM
FREMONT -- Fremont's Board of Aldermen approved the town's budget following a public hearing at Tuesday night's meeting, during which nobody stepped forward to comment.
The town's budget has a total of more than $3.8 million in it, with $50,000 of debt.
The debt is being taken on for sewer rehabilitation in Fremont, specifically to repair the NorWayne Lift Station.
"The NorWayne station is in bad shape," said Fremont Town Administrator Barbara Aycock. "I'm not sure, specifically, what it's called, but the brick is deteriorating. The bacteria is eating away at the brick."
Mrs. Aycock said the budget is approximately the same as last year's budget, as the town is trying to build up its fund balance and minimize spending as much as possible.
"I'm excited to get that lift station fixed because that has been a scary situation," Mrs. Aycock said.
Fremont's town engineer Michael McAllister said work on the station should begin by the end of the summer, as the process of scheduling funding for the project should be streamlined since no permits from the state are required for rehabilitation work.
Fremont's general fund balance is more than $121,000, which is roughly 3.8 percent of the town's total budget.
"We are basically keeping the same budget and trying to build up our fund balance," Mrs. Aycock said. "We're keeping it level and not spending any money unless it's absolutely necessary, and we're not taking on any new projects unless the money comes from a grant."
Issues with the town's sewage did not only come up during the budget discussion.
Tim Howell, public works director, revealed to the board of aldermen that houses scattered throughout the town are springing leaks from their individual sewage systems and gushing into the town's main sewage line.
This is an issue because the town's main line leads to either the town's sprayfields, where waste is sprayed and disposed of or to Goldsboro where the town must pay to have its sewage processed.
"If we don't think that the rain dictates the cost of sewer to Fremont, just look at the right hand column (in the budget)," said Mayor Darron Flowers. "Look at the positives and the negatives in the use of the sprayfields and how many times we haven't been able to spray because it's rained. It doesn't say that in there specifically, but I would say 99 percent of the time when we didn't meet our quota, it was because it rained, and we couldn't spray."
The problem is not centralized to one neighborhood, Howell said, but is scattered randomly throughout several neighborhoods.
McAllister said some measures can be implemented to prevent private sewer lines from leaking into the town's sewer lines.
While the town cannot go on an individual's property to fix the leak, and subsequently charge them for it, the town can cut off their water supply if they do not fix the leak, McAllister said.
Flowers said the town will begin to do just that 30 days from now after citizens have been given sufficient notice of the violations.
In other business at last night's meeting, Dianne Spellman, Fremont's town clerk for the past 38 years, received a clock and a watch in recognition of her service to the town in light of her retirement, which will be effective June 30.
As of July 1, Marti Jones will take over as Fremont's town clerk.